Drilling oil and gas wells can include the use of drilling fluid such as “drilling mud” which is pumped down the drill string to circulate from the drilling head and carry upward to the surface the debris created by the drilling operation. When a gas-containing strata is encountered by the drilling operation, a certain amount of the gas from the strata can be entrained in the drilling mud and thus be carried to the surface. Extracting these gases from the drilling mud allows determination of the presence of hydrocarbons and an estimate of the quantity of hydrocarbon being encountered. Analysis of the recovered gas can be used to make a determination as to the desirability of recovering the gas or oil from the particular strata. This practice is also known as “mud logging”.
Some devices for conducting analysis on the recovered gas for mud logging activities exist. However, existing devices can be relatively difficult to manufacture and require individual calibration. Some existing devices also have narrow operating ranges that limit the number of hydrocarbons that may be detected and also have limited accuracy and repeatability.
Improvement is therefore desirable.